What Erdogan must learn

Turkish protests have a lesson for the powerful prime minister, an Arab columnist writes. Other comment topics today: Qusayr as a defeat for Iran and Hizbollah and the Nile water crisis.

Erdogan must take lessons from the past and analyse the cause of the resentment he faces

Widespread protests have taken major cities in Turkey by storm in recent days. He denies it, but Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the country's prime minister, must have been reminded of the predicaments that leaders in Arab Spring countries faced as the deluge of protests erupted and continued until they were uprooted. So suggested columnist Zuhair Qusaibati in the pan-Arab newspaper Al Hayat.

The popular protests that hit major cities in Turkey have lasted six days. The unrest left two people dead and more than 4,000 injured.

The demonstrations that started as a peaceful Istanbul sit-in last week quickly spiralled into the biggest anti-government protest in years, with demonstrators calling for Mr Erdogan's resignation.

"Mr Erdogan committed a cardinal sin when he referred to protesters who took to the streets of Istanbul as thugs, which evokes vivid images of toppled Arab leaders who used the same denigrating language and expressed the same condescending and defying attitude towards their people," the writer said.

Most alarmingly, he resorted to the same strategy of claiming that he was "resisting an external plot" as a pretext for the heavy-handed police response.

The source of "external conspiracy" from Mr Erdogan's point of view is none other than his archenemy, the secular Syrian regime, which received a delegation from the Turkish opposition only a few weeks ago - the same opposition that joined forces with leftist groups for six days of rage that rocked Turkey's model of prosperity.

By describing angry citizens as instruments of a conspiracy, Mr Erdogan, who is serving a third consecutive term as head of Turkish government, is repeating the Assad regime's game in Syria before the peaceful revolution there morphed into a terrible, tragic war.

But Mr Erdogan would be mistaken if he surmised that Syrian hands are behind his crisis. He shouldn't forget the deep hostility he created among Turkey's nationalists with the settlement agreement he struck with the Kurds, or the strong antagonism he elicited from seculars with his efforts to marginalise them and emasculate the army, which they saw as the trusted sentinel of their beloved Ataturk-ian secular republic, the writer said.

"When investigating the root causes of the waves of anger that drowned Taksim Square in Istanbul, Mr Erdogan must not forget the journalists and judges he has alienated in his quest to reclaim the glory of the Ottoman Empire before it became ill and faded away," Qusaibati added.

Turkish youth aren't dazzled by the shine of a gilded cage without liberties. This is the message that the obstinate leader of the ruling Justice and Development Party failed to grasp. Opposition cannot be ignored forever.

Hizbollah and Iran are the real losers in Syria

Distributing sweets in Hizbollah-controlled areas in Beirut, in celebration of the destruction of Qusayr in Syria and the displacement of its inhabitants, was no less horrible than the images of displaced women and children escaping the inferno of siege, columnist Abdulrahman Al Rashed observed in the London-based daily Asharq Al Awsat.

From a military perspective, Qusayr as a rebel stronghold was doomed from the start. The town is a mere 15km from the Lebanese border with Syria, where Hizbollah's well-armed, well-trained militia has bases. "It was more of a moral battle for Bashar Al Assad's forces and their ally Hizbollah after a series of defeats last year," the writer said.

Qusayr was devastated and its people victimised, but nonetheless, it is Hizbollah and Iran that will have to pay a higher price eventually. The real cost of the battle will soon be reflected in a radical adjustment of political concepts in Arab public opinion. Today, Hizbollah and Iran are the enemy and the urge to free Syria from its regime and its allies Iran, Iraq and Hizbollah, is stronger than ever.

Qusayr's fall won't end the revolution or keep Mr Al Assad in power, the columnist noted.

The battle of Syria isn't a political showdown between international and regional powers. It is the struggle of a people against tyranny. Foreign supporting militias cannot fight with Mr Al Assad forever.

Nile River water crisis threatens stability

Ethiopia's Renaissance Dam project, designed to divert some Nile River water, poses a real risk to Egypt and Sudan's future, said the Saudi daily Al Riyadh in its editorial on Thursday.

Nile water is vital to their ability to generate electricity and irrigate cropland. As long as 1929 agreements over Nile water-sharing remain inactivated, Ethiopia's unilateral decision to build the dam may lead to a military confrontation.

"This is no longer an issue of rights, it has become an issue of monopoly. Egypt and Sudan must join efforts and let go of political differences."

The dam project is still in the initial implementation phase, and so diplomacy can still be potent. Egypt and Sudan are politically and militarily sufficiently strong to exert the necessary pressure on Ethiopia to alter its decisions. But this requires careful coordination that is lacking at the moment between Khartoum and Cairo, the paper noted.

"The Egyptian revolution needs an objective vision to realise important reconciliations, not for the sake of a particular party or sect, but for the sake of the whole historic entity that is Egypt," the paper added.

Without the precious water of the Nile, Egypt would be nothing more than a barren desert with a withering population.

* Digest compiled by Racha Makarem